m. He used that tone now: which was sheer
blundering folly: and he met his match.

"The money you were huntin' for," answered 'Beida, quick as thought.

"You mustn't speak to me like that. It's naughty and--er--
unbecoming."

"Why? _Weren't_ you lookin' for it?" Her eyes sought Rat-it-all and
questioned him.

Mr Pamphlett made haste before his ally could speak. "The Policeman
was acting in the execution of his duty." This was a fine phrase,
and it took 'Beida aback, for she had not a notion what it meant.
But while she sought for a retort, Mr Pamphlett followed up his
advantage, to crush her, and blundered again. "You don't understand
that, eh?"

"Not rightly," she admitted.

"Then don't you see how foolish it is for little girls to mix
themselves in grown-up people's affairs? A policeman has to do many
things in what is called the execution of his duty, For instance,"
continued Mr Pamphlett impressively, "sometimes he takes little girls
when they're naughty, and locks them up."

"Fiddlestick!" said 'Beida with a sigh of relief. "Now I know you're
gassin'. . . . Just now you frightened me with your talk of
executions, which is what they do to a man when he's murdered some
person: and o' course if Nicky--if Mr Nanjivell had been doin'
anything o' _that_ sort--which he hasn', o' course. . . . But when
you go on pretendin' as Rat-it-all can lock _me_ up, why then I see
your game. Tryin' to frighten me, you are, because I'm small."

"If you were a child of mine," threatened Mr Pamphlett, very red in
the gills, "do you know what I'd do to you?"

"No," replied 'Beida; "I can't think. . . . But I reckon 'twould be
something pretty mean. Oh, I'm sick an' tired of the gentry!--if you
call yourself gentry. First of all you turn Father an' Mother out to
find a new home. An' then, as if that wasn' enough, you must come
nosin' in after Mr Nanjivell's small savin's. . . . Gentry!" she
swung round upon Builder Gilbert. "Here, Mr Gilbert, you're neither
gentry nor perlice. When I tell you about Miss Charity Oliver, that
calls herself a lady! What must _she_ do but, happenin' on 'Biades--
that's my younger brother, an' scarce turned four--outside o' Mrs
Pengelly's, with a bit of gold money in his hand that Mr Nanjivell
gave to him in a moment o' weakness,--what must she do (an' callin'
herself a lady, no doubt, all the while) but palm off two bright
coppers on him for a swap? . . . That's a _fact_," 'Beida